ON THE PROVENANCE OF RED OCHRE FROM LATE PALAEOLITHIC AND MESOLITHIC CONTEXTS OF THE EUROPEAN ATLANTIC FACADE: THE CASE OF ARANGAS AND LOS CANES (SPAIN).

The occurrence of ochre fragments in the caves of Arangas and Los Canes, two archaeological sites located in the northern Spain, in the same Upper Carboniferous limestones, provides further evidence of the widespread use of natural colouring materials during the late Pleistocene and the early Holocene, since numerous ochre fragments were found in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic layers of those caves. In addition, traces of red pigments were recognized on Mesolithic stone tools from Arangas. The use of red or yellow ferruginous minerals for symbolic and domestic purposes is well documented in many european Palaeolithic and Mesolithic contexts. Yet the sources of those materials have seldom been established on solid bases. The main aim of this research is the elemental characterization of geological sources around Arangas and Los Canes to achieve a better understanding of the provenance of the archaeological materials. SEM-EDS analysis has been used for a preliminary semi-quantitative analysis to distinguish the major elements to select the samples with a high percentage of Fe. X-Ray Fluorescence was performed to recognize the major and minor elements of the ochres to discriminate the geological sources and to identify potential correspondences between the geomaterials and the archaeological remains. The obtained data were processed by statistical methods such as PCA analysis, bivariate plot, Pearson’s test, R2 and P values to evaluate the correlation between SEM-EDS/XRF and to establish if these techniques can determine the geochemical trends of ochres and satisfy the postulate provenance. The results acquired by this work confirm the efficacy of SEM-EDS and XRF for quantitative analysis. The statistical interpretation of the data suggests that the application of this methodology permits to discriminate archaeological materials from the geological sources and to recognize the original provenance area of the ochre found in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic layers of Arangas and Los Canes.